I had the fortunate luck of getting to spend this New Years Eve in Bel Air, Los Angeles, USA. What a fantastic time at the 5 star Peninsula Hotel with The Chip Shop Boys.

Over this past year or so, I’ve been very fortunate to be able to travel, not only all over the UK, to South Korea with Carl Barat for a beautifuly paradoxical punk show, on a tour accross the French Alps with The Dominos for apres ski for the 20 somethings (I managed to fit in some snowboarding of course) and most importantly to me, as I’ve always dreamed of going there, Los Angeles in America.

We got to tour the Hollywood sign, touched the crisp sand on the famous Venice beach and tiptoed accross the hollywood stars signs to see all the actors names I had seen on TV growing up. It was quite a surreal experience and I had to pinch myself a few times when our house for the few days we were there had it’s own Swimming pool, Snooker table, Arcade machines and it’s own bar which kept us all very amused for the evening before the gig.

The venue itself was spotless and the hotel staff couldn’t have been more polite, with fire breathers, stilt walkers, a classical pianist, contorsionists and then us to top the night off, with A-list celebrities watching in the audiece will be a memory I’ll never forget.
